Montgomery, Trainor warring by mail in Tammany DA race

Warren Montgomery and Brian Trainor are battling it out to see who will succeed Walter Reed as 22nd Judicial District Attorney in Saturday’s runoff, but instead of limiting their attacks to mailers and commercials, the two lawyers are also engaged in a duel of cease-and-desist letters.

Trainor’s camp was the first to use the tactic; attorney Rykert Toledano sent a letter on Nov. 20 that demanded Montgomery stop saying that Trainor had never tried or prosecuted a felony crime or made an arrest.

On Monday, Montgomery fired back with his own cease-and-desist letter, demanding that Trainor stop making “false and slanderous statements regarding myself. Specifically, the statements that I ‘have made a career out of defending criminals.’”

Montgomery’s letter is accompanied by another three-page letter from his attorney, Antonio Le Mons, that rebuts arguments made in Trainor’s letter.

“Warren Montgomery stands by his position that Mr. Trainor has never tried or prosecuted a felony crime,” the letter states, dismissing Trainor’s role in one case as marginal and saying that no evidence has been produced of his work in a second case offered by the Trainor camp as evidence of his experience.

Montgomery’s lawyer also chides Trainor for a new Facebook posting that says the New Orleans Advocate and The Times-Picayune had uncovered Montgomery’s deceiving of the public concerning Trainor’s prosecutorial records. The papers have not uncovered anything, the letter says, also accusing the Trainor camp of displaying The Advocate’s logo “to seemingly suggest that The Advocate has endorsed him.” The Advocate does not endorse candidates for political office.

Trainor fired back Monday evening.

“Even in the face of indisputable evidence, Warren continues to mislead the voters,” he said by email. “The simple fact is while I prosecuted criminals, Warren defended them.”